Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters

So, I hate to admit it, because I don't think Jared Leto should have a film career, but I actually liked the trailer. A lot of Jekyll & Hyde vibes. Also, I really like Working for a Body Upgrade stories, especially where as is the case here, the subject ends up as Bad Powers, Good People.

I do hope that there is some Lampshade Hanging of the Jekyll/Hyde thing though, as that whole kind of plotline of "character mutates after experimenting on themselves" (cf. The Lizard, Man-Bat, and Marvel's Sauron) is really hard to take seriously. The trailer definitely seemed to get some of that across with the music and such but I'm thinking of actual dialogue.

One thing I wondered about though is that it seems like vampire!Morbius looks pretty much the same as normal!Morbius unless he goes into some kind of beast mode I guess. Which makes me wonder about the drawbacks of being a vampire.

Also, I am questioning the Vulture cameo in terms of it making sense beyond showing that Marvel and Sony are trying to make their marriage work. Unless it turns out that Vulture has been operating as a villain off-screen, it's weird that he would know who Morbius is (well, any more than anyone else would if Morbius was a famous doctor).

Have we even confirmed that he's not a completely different character? There is nothing in the trailer to ID what character or role he plays.

He's wearing the same prison outfit as he was at the end of Homecoming. He's definitely playing the same character.

What I'm expecting is that the Toomes cameo takes place as an ending piece, possibly the Stinger. I figure there will probably be someone that's trying to assemble various big-name bad dudes for either nefarious or altruistic purposes, depending on if they go for more of a Thunderbolts or a Suicide Squad vibe with the inevitable Sinister Six movie.

So, let's say, the Master Planner (Doc Ock) is creating a crime organization of super peoples to do crime. He's gotten Toomes and Gargan out of prison, either already reached out to Venom or will later, and now we see Morbius answering his summons in the stinger.

But then the catch is that Toomes was a bad guy for decent reasons, Venom's kinda not a bad guy, and Morbius is also kinda not a bad guy. So the Sinister Six probably isn't going to work out the way the Master Planner anticipates, and instead we'll get the Thunderbolts dynamic where half the team likes being antiheroes more than supervillains and rebels against the other half.

That's what I think that scene indicates.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 14th 2020 at 10:22:04 AM

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I too have a sneaking suspicion that the Vulture cameo is something for the credits and Sony purposefully used it for the trailer to give people a reason to see the movie, which I find rather telling...

Also, if you check out the movie's synopsis page, you can see the screenwriters for Iron Man, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, are credited for screenplay alongside the writers of Morbius. Did we know about Marcum and Holloway's involvement beforehand?

It wouldn't be the first time Sony does that. Remember how TASM 2 trailers heavily featured the Osborn lab with Ock's tentacles and Vulture's wings, and this scene ended up happening in the epilogue of the movie?

Edited by Akirakan on Jan 14th 2020 at 1:45:50 PM

I know that we've heard repeated accounts of how Iron Man 1 had a half-finished script and the actors spent most of the film ad-libbing their dialogue. It worked for the film and provided a uniquely organic voice to its characters, but still, that's lightning in a bottle.

So I'm not sure that having the guys who didn't finish writing the script for Iron Man 1 onboard is a point in the movie's favor.

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Oof. If anything, that just raises more red flags...

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jan 14th 2020 at 2:30:51 PM

Iron Man has also been their only well received film. Their other credits include Transformers: The Last Knight, MIB: International, and Punisher: War Zone, all critically panned movies. Mind you, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes in a production (MIB in particular most of their script was re-written and Hemsworth and Thompson prefers theirs), but it doesn't bod well.

Someone pointed out how the tone of Morbius is similar to Dracula: Untold, fitting since they share writers, the other pair of writers credited. In particular, DU has the origin of him going to a cave and becoming a vampire. They're also writing the Madame Web film and it seems they're going to oversee the SUMC as a whole.

Edited by Akirakan on Jan 14th 2020 at 3:08:08 PM

Probably because they didn't finish the script.

RDJ, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, etc. deserve as much if not more credit for the film's writing.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 14th 2020 at 1:15:09 PM

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Hoo boy, between this, the underperformance of DU, the niche nature of Morbius himself, and how vampires haven't exactly been all the rage for some time, this paints a pretty dire picture, doesn't it?

Again, trying to analyze this without emotions getting in the way, but if it wasn't for Venom 2 coming in October this year, Morbius might wound up setting up trouble for Sony just like ASM 2 did...

It also doesn't help that the version of Morbius a lot of fans (like me) are most familiar with is the Sta S version with the palm suckers who 'HUNGERS for PLASMA.' I would LOVE a movie about that guy. This... ehhh.

I actually unironically love Punisher: War Zone. It's a pretty damn great film — over the top and ultraviolent in all the ways a Punisher film should be. It was also one of the few early Marvel films directed by a woman — Lexi Alexander.

I've seen a few people jokingly suggest that Tommy Wiseau should've been cast as Morbius, considering all the jokes made about him being a vampire.

There's no way in hell that would be a good idea for many reasons, but that would be one of the most glorious things to behold if they had.

If Morbius bombs, watch the eventual MCU Blade movie feature a rebooted Morbius.

Related to the SUMC:

Silver and Black is looking to get reworked as a TV series.

Are we ready to say Sony's putting too many eggs in one basket again or we're not there yet?

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jan 14th 2020 at 4:06:28 AM

I would watch that, although I still think putting Black Cat and Silver Sable together is silly. They aren't associated with each other in the comics, Black Cat is a thief and Silver Sable is a mercenary.

Remember that when they announced that they were making a female-led movie they got a lot of praise and there where headlines like this over how they beat Marvel and DC to making one?

It's been six years and both Marvel and DC have released female-led superhero movies, and Sony's most advanced project is now heading to tv.

Now's the chance to announce a Anya Corazon movie and beat Marvel and DC at having a latina lead for a movie!

Edited by Akirakan on Jan 14th 2020 at 4:15:42 AM

It's because Sony is nervously skittish about making more expensive movies after Amazing Spider-Man 2 got critically panned and made less than the first one. They definitely had a plan and introduced Black Cat in AMS 2 (played by Felicity Jones), but once they realized that they needed to reboot the universe again, they scuttled all their plans.

In an alternate timeline, we got a Felicity Jones Black Cat movie. And it was terrible.

It's a bit weird, but I welcome it. Felicia's had a lot of trouble with Marvel in recent decades. Ever since Peter got back together with MJ, they haven't really known what to do with her. Adaptations have it even harder due to the benefit of hindsight; MJ's iconic role as the Spider-Wife leaves little room for Spider-Man's for-a-while Dating Catwoman girlfriend.

Felicia, as a character, has been through a rough patch.

• She had a storyline that tried to flesh her out with Rape as Backstory.
• She became the Kingpin of Crime for a while because Doc Ock punched out her tooth.
• She appeared in a video game where she's the Evil Alternate Love Interest to Good Love Interest MJ. In order to get the Good Ending, Spider-Man has to voluntarily abandon her to die.
• She appeared in another video game where she lies to Spider-Man about him fathering a nonexistent child in order to manipulate him into carrying out her agenda.
• In the Ultimate comics, an adult-age Black Cat repeatedly hits on the teenage Spider-Man until she finds out how old he is and vomits in his mask.

Etc. etc. Teaming up with Silver Sable to be a girl-power duo might be a weird direction for the two characters, but it's frankly one of the most inoffensive uses of Black Cat in many, many years.

If nothing else, maybe it will give the comic division some new ideas, since adaptations often resonate back into the comics they were adapted from.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 14th 2020 at 2:22:59 AM

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Actually, Marvel already has a Black Cat comic out right now that's apparently pretty good and really popular. The first issue was one of Top Ten most bought comics in 2019.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 14th 2020 at 1:21:03 AM

What video games were those?

The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."

Give her a girlfriend like in the MC 2 universe. Problem solved!

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Edited by Akirakan on Jan 14th 2020 at 4:22:23 AM

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and the PS4 Spider-Man, respectively.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 14th 2020 at 2:22:06 AM

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In fairness to PS 4 Felicia, she does later save Peter's life and apologizes for jerking him around. Given how badly Felicia's Psycho Ex-Girlfriend phases in the comics could be^note  She once teamed up with a villain to frame Peter for murder and later assaulted MJ and these were before the Queenpin nonsense, PS 4 Felicia is a saint in comparison.

Having re-read Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do, I found that Felicia's rape retcon was done... better than I remembered. One part that I think has aged really well is Felicia saying that she wishes she'd told somebody about her rape and gotten therapy. Hell, the story even avoids and deconstructs Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male.

Rather I'd say the issue is everything else that surrounds the rape. Namely, the story's inconsistent tone and the sexualized art.

Edited by windleopard on Jan 14th 2020 at 3:58:25 AM

So, what powers does Morbius have? Does he have any special sciencey powers or did he use it all up for his origin?

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